NWA Owner Billy Corgan Comments on NWA’s Issues with Nick Aldis

As noted before, National Wrestling Alliance talent Nick Aldis announced this past Sunday that he had recently given his notice of his intent to leave the company. Following Aldis’ announcement, the NWA responded stating that they have suspended Aldis over his recent actions.

A recent episode of the Busted Open Radio podcast had NWA owner Billy Corgan as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Corgan’s thoughts on the recent backstage issues between Aldis and himself.

“Nick Aldis and I entered into a business relationship five years ago where we bet on one another. That proved to be a good bet. He’s been the highest paid talent in the NWA the entire time, without question. He knows that. He’s had a lot of say, not only over the company but also with how he was booked. That’s transparent. Why is a man, who a week ago, emailed us to say, ‘Thanks for everything you’ve done, I’m going to kind of move on.’ ‘Cool.’ He gave his notice, privately, we didn’t do anything. Did we retaliate or leak some rumor? No, we didn’t say anything. We have shows booked, Nick is on the card. He’s doing interviews for the pay-per-view. Why is a guy, who is so disgruntled, doing interviews? We’re in business, right? A couple of days ago, he does a video where he says, ‘I’m opting out of my contract.’ He does it publicly. I wouldn’t do business that way, but it’s his choice. I didn’t like it, but okay, he’s leaving in 55 days. Do your business and go out the door. Hopefully, we’ll do business down the road. Then, he starts blasting the product. I want to remind everybody. Everything that he’s said, I’ve been hearing that stuff for years. It’s not like I heard it and got sensitive. Why in a pay-per-view week, with a talent who is leaving the company, does he decide to start blasting me and product, 55 days before he’s out and he can do whatever he wants to do? Why does he have to bury the locker room and the product? Again, I’ve heard all of this stuff privately for years. These are not new criticisms. He and I have battled about the product for years and he’s helped make the product better with those battles. This is not a sensitive reactionary thing. How do I, as the leader of this company, allow a key talent, the most highly visible talent in the company, up until he opens his mouth and tells people he’s leaving, blast the company? He’s still under contract and being paid. We don’t invite him. He’s still being paid, we didn’t take his money. I can’t have a guy like that show up because what message does that send to the locker room. There are a lot of people in the locker room not happy about this. They have to do their job. Why is the focus not on Matt Cardona, Tyrus, Trevor Murdoch, Kamille, KiLynn King, or Chelsea Green? The focus is on Nick Aldis, who is not on the show anymore. It’s not an animosity, it’s just, why are we doing this?”

Corgan also gave his thoughts on being unsure if Aldis’ recent actions is just some sort of elaborate work by him.

“It’s just talking about these things in public. I don’t understand what the point is. Why is he working an angle when he’s leaving? Why is he using the NWA’s good name or my good name, to get himself over in a way that is not necessary? If he’s everything he thinks he is, go into the free market like any free agent and test your mettle. He’s working something. I don’t know what he’s working, but he’s willing to sacrifice me and the NWA to prove something or get something going or get out early to go do something because someone has given him an ‘iggy’ of ‘hey, if you can get out early.’ This is not cool. He’s a paid talent and under contract. He didn’t come to us privately and say, ‘I’d like to get out early for XYZ.’ I’ve been in those situations. I can deal with those things. I used to tell Nick in the early days of the NWA, ‘if Vince (McMahon) calls you tomorrow and wants you, I’ll release you out of your contract.’ Why is a guy like that, me, who is willing to let a guy go to chase bigger opportunities, why does this guy have to go and burn down the company 50 something days out when he can just leave in 50 days? It’s not what he said, I’ve heard it all. Criticism of the company is valid. It’s okay. Why is a key talent, who is supposed to be a locker room leader, doing this on the way out? Basically setting the pay-per-view in a weird cloud. Then, when we say he’s not going to be on the PPV, he tweets, ‘I was prepared fans, sorry, I was prepared to perform.’ ‘Don’t watch the product, it’s terrible, but I was going to be there.’ That’s not a clear message. That’s someone who is working something that I can’t see. If Nick is smarter than me, I can’t figure it out. It’s some sort of (Vince) Russo stuff. It’s beyond me. Pack your bags, finish your contract out, go, and say what you want to say. Then it’s not within the bounds of the company. It’s two men talking. If he wants to talk openly and wants to go on and blast me somewhere, okay, then I can go on the same podcast and blast him, but we’re not fighting over the company. He’s in the company. He’s a paid talent. What am I supposed to do? You’re basically creating a scenario where, every time someone wants out, they’re going to follow the Nick Aldis plan.”

Corgan also stated that there had not been any animosity between him and Aldis prior to Aldis’ notice of departure statement.

“No, everything has been cool, communication has been good. He sent the email to Pat Kenney, who runs talent relations. Pat told me, ‘Just got an email from Nick who said he was going to move on.’ We said, ‘Okay.’ He wants to go, it’s time, we have to turn the page. This stuff happens. We’re not a billion dollar company, it’s okay. When I got that message from Pat, I didn’t like it in the sense that I felt it would have been better if we jumped on Zoom and talked it through, but he didn’t want to do it that way. He did it legally, he gave his legal notice. There was no heat. We didn’t run to some dirt sheet. We accepted it and started planning how Nick was going to leave the company, what was best for the company and talking about what Nick would be or wouldn’t be comfortable with on his way out the door.

When a person goes scorched earth, where do you go back? When I was on a few months ago and went off on Nick, we were working, that was an angle we were working. All plans were Nick was going to stay with the company in 2023. We were going to pit against each other and we talked about maybe I turn and would be with him. We talked about all kinds of scenarios for 2023. We started building up this heat. Part of what feeds into this story now is a worked story. Everything has been totally cool. He told me, over and over, what he didn’t like. I told him what I liked and didn’t like, and basically said, ‘If you don’t like it, you can go and start your own company.’ This is the NWA, this is my company, I invest my time and money to work on the NWA as something I care about. That’s it. It’s all transparent. I would prefer that the last image you have of Nick Aldis in the NWA ring is his hand raised. He didn’t want to do business the right way, he went into business for himself and now we’re in a position where we have to defend. What are we defending? Nick Aldis doesn’t like the NWA. Okay. Let the people that are here go out and prove why he’s wrong. It’s not complicated.

I was hopeful that, whatever he’s after, if we entered into some conversation of, ‘You want to get out early? What’s this about?’ Once he brought Mickie into the whole thing and other private business involving EmPowerrr, and people are all animated, come on man. Nick is a smart dude. He is intimately aware of how my world and business works. He’s been in my world, not many people are in my world. He’s a smart dude. He understands by pushing some of these buttons, it’s going to get juice going. I’m saying to the audience, this is not a theory, I’m just saying, if a guy is leaving in 50 days and all he has to do is fulfill four more dates, why go scorched earth on the company? If he wants to go scorched earth, leave and do it. Then we’re having a different conversation. Now he’s made the NWA about him, but not for wrestling, and that buries the locker room. He’s not going to bury me, people have tried to bury me for 35 years, he’s not going to bury me. He’s burying the NWA and what he helped build. Why?

Corgan also gave his thoughts about Aldis’ issues over not being happy how he was being booked in the NWA and his status as a top star in the company.

“He wasn’t happy with the way he was booked, he told me that, and we talked about that. He’s a top guy, he believes he’s a top guy, and he believes the company runs best when he’s in the top position. He was very clear about that. I told him, ‘I can’t build a company around one person.’ I have to get other people over to heat the company up. It can’t just be about you. If it’s just one guy, then it’s just the Nick Wrestling Alliance. He thinks guys in the locker room are hell of workers. He’s told me, ‘this guy is a great worker. This guy is great.’ Okay, so let me get these guys in position.”

Corgan also defended the recent comments he made regarding why NWA has not held another all-women’s Empowerrr event.

“Nothing is more dumb than trying to spin a guy, in me, who ran an all-women’s pay-per-view, which was a huge success, I built it around Mickie James as a talent and personality, I endorsed the whole thing, I let her build the card, I lost money doing it, but now I’m against women’s wrestling? Come on. This is silly. The conversations with Mickie were about running a subsequent EmPowerrr. I said, ‘If it’s not going to be as good or better, we probably shouldn’t do it right now.’ If people remember what I said, and they obviously don’t, ‘there isn’t enough top available talent on the market right now.’ Tony Khan has signed a tremendous amount of top female talent. I’m not in a working relationship with AEW, I can’t just pick up the phone and say, ‘Hey, can you send me some people?’ Part of that was Tony trying to take credit for what Mickie had accomplished. We were in discussions with IMPACT about doing something. I’m not a miracle worker. If I’m going to say ‘this is about empowerment,’ which to me is about people who have not had an opportunity to speak at the grand stage before, EmPowerrr, isn’t just about all females, it’s giving different people with different voices an opportunity. That was part of the discussion with Mickie. It doesn’t have to be built around you, there are other ways to do this. We didn’t agree on the business part of it. We tabled it and wanted to do it at a later date. If she took that wrong, I apologize. Let me say one thing personally, I’ve known Mickie James for 20 years, I’ve only been in the wrestling business with her for a few years. I think of her as a friend first and I think if Mickie has a problem with me, she should pick up the phone and go, ‘I didn’t like the way this went down.’ The issues with Mickie never came up with Nick in the last six months. If it’s this huge issue, it never came up, not once. If it was an issue from when it started, around NWA 74, he’s worked for the company another 10-15 times and been paid. People are throwing logs on the fire to create smoke to divert from the fact that they’re on about something. It seems obvious they’re after something. She doesn’t work for me, he does. They want to get out early, just say you want to get out. It’s this weird thing of, ‘I have to be babyface and bury the company.’ It’s bad conspiracy stuff. Now I’m in a position of defending something that doesn’t need to be defended.”

Corgan also stated that he had been warned of Aldis’ attitude issues prior to his decision to sign Aldis to the NWA and make him the focal point of the company in 2017.

“I was warned about this Nick Aldis before I signed Nick Aldis. As long as I gave Nick Aldis what he wanted, he was cheesecake and flowers. Now, I’m meeting the Nick Aldis that I was warned about, that people in other companies warned me about when I signed him. If that makes me a dummy, I don’t think so. It’s been a good play overall. Does this leave a sour taste in my mouth? Of course.

None of this needed to be public. We could have all these intense feelings and still be thinking what we’re thinking, but why is this in public? That’s my argument. Nick picked this fight. Now we’re in wrestling-land. What are we talking about? A talent running a non-wrestling angle angle. He picked the fight. Now he’s in a fight. I’m not a weakling. I’ve been in the public forum for 34 years. Nick wants to fight, let’s fight. That’s not a challenge. Do you hear me blasting Nick or spilling family secrets? No. I’m talking strictly on a business level. This is a stupid play. He will regret this play later. I believe it hurts his stock in the public. If he were talking about running this angle on someone else, I would say, ‘Don’t do it.’ Nick had a reputation before coming to NWA as a bit of a headache and a locker room problem. He’s just reinforcing a stereotype that he spent five years erasing. Why? It’s bad for business. It’s bad for Nick Aldis business. I hope none of this rubs off on Mickie and hopefully I can resolve my issues with Mickie down the road. The issues with Mickie were business, nothing personal. If she felt disrespected, she felt disrespected on a wrestling business level. I would never disrespect Mickie as a woman or talent. She’s a Hall of Famer.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com